"Sunny's crated," Brenna said, but she glanced at Masera and realized right away that his own words had been deceptively offhand in delivery; his eyes were watching every nuance of the conversation. "Hold on," she said, balling up the plastic wrap that had held her peanut butter and jelly sandwich and twisting in her chair to toss it out. "I'll walk back up front with you."
"Finish your lunch," Masera said, nodding at the remaining baggie of carrot sticks as he swallowed the last of his coffee; Brenna winced at the thought of how hot it must have been. "I'm through here."
It stopped her short, her hand in the act of stuffing the carrots into her
Warrior Princess
lunch box. He didn't wait for her response, but stood—or tried to. It seemed to take him by surprise, as though his attention had been so diverted that he'd forgotten his battered status. But he pushed himself to his feet, straightened with effort, and tossed his coffee cup at the giant bin in the corner of the room, gathering up his papers.
"Don't forget to come spend some time in the tub room," she said, and gave him a dare-you smile. People forgot she could do that; she had one of those wholesome faces, the kind that take on
cheerful
as their default expression. Her eyes even tipped up a tiny bit, as if they were always smiling. Sometimes she stood in front of the mirror and tried for
sultry
, but couldn't ever pull it off. Not with that chin—strong, in a strong jaw, and with a definite cleft. Or with those lips, which had a little uplift in each corner and, just like her eyes, always seemed to imply a smile even when just in repose. And her nose...just hopeless. Not that it didn't suit her face, but maybe that was the problem. It wasn't quite what you would call perky, not with that subtle bump on the bridge of it, but it was darn close.
Taken together, her features made people assume certain things of her. Because of her face, they thought her to be incessantly cheerful, and possibly just a little naive. Because she was tall and lean unto gawkiness, with big hands and bony shoulders and a body that, although it had decent dimensions, couldn't seem to assemble itself in gracefully, they somehow thought her to be unsophisticated in a charming way, perhaps even someone to be protected, as her father always had.
But she wasn't. She could meet a challenge as well as anyone, and stand up for herself along the way. And that's what her smile said to Masera, a smile she'd startled herself with because she never bothered to use it on people who couldn't manage to perceive it, and here it was. Some part of her had realized the truth before her thinking brain…that he
could
see beyond her features, beyond her appearance.
The hard smile surprised him briefly, much as she'd meant it to—but it didn't seem to put him off, also as she'd meant it to. There was something about him that intensified, leaping to meet that look; something in those hooded eyes.
"Wait till you heal up from whoever kicked the tar out of you," she told him. "You don't want to have to call me in to lift a dog for you."
"Like you did for Roger," Sammi said with a wicked little grin—right on cue, her eyes lighting at the thought. Like all the PePP volunteers, Sammi was grateful for the adoption days allowed by Pets!—but it didn't make her blind to the way Roger managed his people.
"You see," Brenna said. "People hear about these things here. We watch out for one another."
"We do," Sammi said, quite aware that she was playing a role in a larger conversation that she didn't understand, but willing to team with Brenna to do it.
Again, amusement flickered across Gil's face, settling at one side of his mouth. The side with the split lip. "I'll keep that in mind," he said, and left the room—but somehow left some trace of his attitude behind.
It kept Sammi silent and thoughtful. Brenna gave it an internal scowl and jumped up to prowl the offerings of the snack machine, thinking hard about chocolate. She was still prowling when Sammi spoke up. "Who
was
that? Why don't you like him?"
"Because he doesn't like me," Brenna said, which was indeed what it basically boiled down to. Judging her and Elizabeth simply because of the way they might—or might not, given that he'd never seen them—handle dogs.
"Something didn't like
him
," Sammi said. "Car accident?"
"Fight, I'm betting," Brenna said, thinking of how similar Russell had looked and moved the time several high school rivals had teamed up to put some hurt on him. Not truly to damage him...just to make a point.
A very hard point.
Brenna sat on the corner of the table, struggling with the cellophane on the brownie she had just rescued from the depths of the machine. "Anyway, I
am
being careful about the dog pack. Not even going out at night. At least I don't have anyone leasing the barn right now...though I ought to try to get someone in there this spring." She broke off a piece of brownie, popped it into her mouth, and spoke around it. "Is it true? That no one's actually seen any of the dogs?"
Sammi hesitated, long enough for Brenna to sift through her own recollection of news briefs on the radio, to and from work. Someone had found a mauled cat on the edge of their property and the wounds were determined to be dog-inflicted. Someone else had found a small mutt in the woods edging a farmer's field. But had anyone seen the pack? Had anyone seen even a single dog?
Gil Masera knew something, that was for sure.
Or he thought he knew something.
"No," Sammi finally said, picking at the tab opener of her soda. She looked up at Brenna. "But plenty of people have seen what they've
done
. We've got PePP members out in your area right now—someone found another dead dog last night, a little Jack Russell mix. Some of us volunteered to look for signs of the pack. And Janean is at Lakeridge right now with a second dog—this one's alive. It's hurt, but alive. It'll go through quarantine, and if the owner hasn't shown up, we'll take it on till it heals and place it." She gave Brenna a dark look. "It
used
to be a real pretty little Sheltie mix. So don't tell me those dogs aren't out there somewhere. And don't
you
get careless about them."
Brenna held up both hands. "Like I said, Sunny's crated." Never mind explaining Druid, who was crated right along with the hound but had disdained the bone Brenna had left him; his stare had bored into her back as she'd left the house, sending the certain message that he was supposed to be coming with her, regardless of where she was headed. "And I'm not going out after dark, at least not until this whole dog pack thing is sorted out or broken up or whatever."
"Well, good," Sammi said, mollified. She took a swig of her soda while Brenna chewed the brownie—mostly cardboard, but her body seemed to think it was getting chocolate—and said, "Tell me again who that was?"
It took Brenna a moment, since she hadn't said anything on the subject in the first place. "Gil Masera, you mean? Says he's a trainer. Looks like he's going to be working out of Pets!. For a while, anyway."
Sammi waggled her eyebrows at Brenna, no part of subtle. "Bet he cleans up nice."
Brenna laughed at her—Sammi was at all times an earthy delight—but her reply was sober and certain. "And I'm betting he won't be here long enough to find out. Guy with an attitude like that? Roger won't be able to hang on to him."
But he knew something. And before he went, she wanted to know what.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CHAPTER 6
HAGALZ
Disruption Born of Human Need
Brenna set the rifle against the barn and pulled her target paper off the ancient hay bales she had stacked high, two deep and three wide behind the barn—a nice, broad buffer. Just in case. So far she'd been shooting with a surprising accuracy, considering how long it had been—but then, she'd always had a feel for this old .22.
On the other hand, she'd never pointed it at a moving target. Or a
living
one, for that matter. And she fervently hoped she would never have to.
She stuck the shredded target between two bales and decided against shooting another round; a glance at her watch—five-thirty—told her she had only forty-five minutes until the sun went down, and she still wanted to take Druid on a walk around the pastures.
Pastures, hell
. She wanted to take him to the spring. To match his footprints against those that appeared from nowhere. And...some part of her wanted to see how he reacted to being there at all, although the rest of her didn't want to admit it, simply because it all didn't quite make enough sense.
She reloaded the rifle, double-checking that she hadn't accidentally chambered a round, and then left the chamber open and the rifle on the porch. Inside the dog room, Sunny beat her tail against the side of the crate in greeting; Druid merely gave Brenna a dignified and offended look at having been left behind. Brenna shrugged her vest on over her black hooded sweatshirt, made sure Sunny saw her fill her pockets with broken biscuits, and then turned the Redbone loose as she leashed Druid. Sunny wasn't reliable on
come
, but as long as Brenna had biscuits, she wouldn't go far.
On the porch, Brenna hesitated, then reached for the rifle. Never in her life had she walked the pastures with a firearm for self-protection. It felt distinctly different—
strange
—from when she walked out for target shooting. "Better safe than sorry," she told Druid in melodramatic solemnity.
Druid was unimpressed, and much more interested in the prospect of a walk. He capered before her, never quite pulling on the lead—a gentleman, he was—but as happily carefree as she'd yet seen him, this silly dog who often whined while chewing his bones, all the important thoughts slipping out. Sunny slid under the gate that Druid navigated without so much as ducking, and they both waited impatiently for Brenna to use the boring human method of open-and-close.
Once out in the pasture, Sunny ran giant circles around them, so pleased with her freedom that Brenna began to doubt the decision to let her stretch her legs. But when Brenna patted her pockets Sunny came charging to her side, so she relaxed. Chill spring, early evening, and she was out of the grooming room and here in her own little corner of the world. Druid settled to a steady trot beside her, his short legs flashing to keep up with her naturally long stride; together they went down the steep, short bank and then followed the creek to the spring.
The cigarette butt caught her eye first thing.
It lay directly down the hill from the spring; shocked, she stared at it in dismay. Not only had someone been here in this place that meant so much to her, he'd flung his trash down and left it, a harsh visual curse for her to trip over. And so stung was she by its presence and all it implied that she didn't attend Druid's sudden worried whine, the series of small jerks against the lead—he who had capered at the end of it in careful compliance and respect of its length.